Commentary, sarcasm and snide remarks from a Florida resident of over thirty years. Being a glutton for punishment is a requirement for residency here.
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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Where's the dramamine? Part Ten

Florida legislators are on the verge of making the system for nominating presidential candidates go from bad to worse.

Leading legislators in both parties say they want to move up the state's presidential primary date to just a week after the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary to give Florida more of a say in nominating candidates. That's an understandable impulse; when Florida held its last presidential primary in 2004, six weeks after New Hampshire's, the nominees already had been decided.

But moving up Florida's next presidential primary would be like picking out a loose thread in the unraveling nominating system and giving it a good, hard yank.

The system has become increasingly front-loaded, with too many contests bunched too soon after the first ones in Iowa and New Hampshire. That compresses the nominating process and cheats voters of the time they need to get to know candidates before choosing among them. It favors the best-known and best-funded candidates, not necessarily the best qualified. And it creates a marathon general-election campaign that can turn off even the most civic-minded Americans.

Other states won't stand still if Florida moves up. California, Illinois and New Jersey also are considering moving their primaries to early February. They would be joining at least five smaller states with primaries then. Other states, fearful of being left out, surely would follow. That could create a virtual national primary, and rule out all but political heavyweights from competing.

First how is giving Florida voters a vote taking away their time to get away the candidates. Has the Sentinel not noticed the campaign is already taking place? If a year isn't long enough to learn about the candidates, I don't know what is.

Then the very editorial notes the 2004 primary election was a done thing by the time Florida's primary came around. A rushed vote is worse than no vote at all? What is really wrong with a national primary either? Isn't it better to have 15-20 states deciding the nominees than two small states like it is now?

Is the Orlando Sentinel editorial board drinking from the same well as those at the Palm Beach Post?